Chapter 6 Why didn't your boyfriend come to pick you up...?
"You're here so late to run errands?"
Shen Mengqing greeted them politely, her voice sounding particularly pleasant in the cramped elevator space.
Yu Xin raised his long eyelids and looked at her slightly tired face: "Aren't you working so late?"
Shen Mengqing: "..."
She thought to herself, “He can be quite annoying when he talks a lot, not much better than when he’s quiet.” She wondered if he was born with the ability to kill conversations.
We hadn't chatted for long when the elevator reached the first floor.
Shen Mengqing stepped out of the elevator first and looked back at the people inside.
She waved and said, "See you next time."
If she happens to run into someone she has no connection with more than three times, she chooses to believe that they will definitely meet again; her premonitions are always very accurate.
Yu Xin nodded and continued taking the elevator to the parking lot.
As Shen Mengqing approached the door, she realized it was raining heavily outside.
She took out her phone and hailed a taxi. The nearby office buildings were too dense, and there were dozens of people queuing to hail a taxi. After waiting for a few minutes, someone finally accepted the order. The distance to her was a full ten kilometers.
Shen Mengqing decided to go back to her office to find an umbrella first, and then come down to wait for her ride-hailing car.
She turned to walk back, but her heel accidentally got stuck on an uneven spot, causing her to twist her ankle and gasp in pain.
Fortunately, I can still walk normally.
I had only taken a few steps when I heard a short, loud car horn behind me.
She looked in the direction of the sound and saw a long, dark-colored car parked at the door. The passenger window slowly rolled down, revealing Yu Xin's well-defined face in the darkness.
This time, only a few minutes had passed since they last met. Her heart was like a still lake tossed with a pebble, rippling outwards.
"Get in the car."
Because they were a bit far apart, Shen Mengqing couldn't hear Yu Xin's voice very clearly, but she understood the two words from his lip movements.
Shen Mengqing walked towards him without hesitation. With each step, her sprained ankle throbbed with pain, so she walked very slowly.
When she sat in the passenger seat, her foot was pulled, causing her to stagger in pain. Yu Xin quickly pulled her hand away to support her and helped her into the car.
Unexpectedly, Shen Mengqing's bag tilted as she moved, and the contents of the bag, along with the documents she had stayed up all night to organize, scattered all over the floor.
"Excuse me, please wait a moment."
Fortunately, the car was spacious enough. Shen Mengqing picked up the fallen items and put them into her bag, only to find that she had an extra file folder in her hand.
"Is this yours?" she asked, handing it to Yu Xin.
Yu Xin casually tossed the car into the back seat, and after Shen Mengqing fastened her seatbelt, he smoothly started the car.
The rain was pattering outside the car. Yu Xin didn't play any music in the car; all he could hear was the sound of the windshield wipers working diligently.
Having worked in sales for a long time, Shen Mengqing couldn't stand the strange and awkward atmosphere, so she tried to find a topic to talk about: "Your car is pretty good."
The clients she dealt with were mostly very wealthy, and some of the nouveau riche loved to show off their cars. But the Rolls-Royce Phantom that Yu Xin drove was the most expensive one she had ever seen.
It perfectly matches Yu Xin's unapproachable temperament.
"Why didn't your boyfriend come to pick you up in this heavy rain?"
Yu Xin didn't continue the conversation, but abruptly asked a question.
Shen Mengqing asked in confusion, "Boyfriend?"
Yu Xin reminded her, "It's the person in the photo on your bedside table."
“That person,” Shen Mengqing said knowingly, “we broke up a while ago.”
Yu Xin glanced at Shen Mengqing out of the corner of her eye and saw that her expression was normal, without a trace of sadness.
"So, you cried in the convenience store that day because you broke up with your boyfriend?" Yu Xin asked again.
Shen Mengqing: "Huh? When did I..."
She paused, then suddenly remembered something.
Just a few days before she first met Yu Xin, she had a drink at a convenience store.
It was already late at night, and because she was in a bad mood and hadn't drunk alcohol in a long time, she drank a lot.
Halfway through drinking, a long eyelash fell into Shen Mengqing's eye. She rubbed it for a long time before finally picking it out, and her eyeball was so irritated that a few tears streamed down her face.
When I looked up again, there was a package of tissues on the table. It was cherry blossom scented and hadn't been opened yet.
She guessed that the convenience store employee thought she was crying and that's why they gave it to her.
Upon realizing this, it was as if two broken wires in Shen Mengqing's mind had been reconnected, and once the power was applied, everything became clear.
A thought suddenly struck her, and she asked Yu Xin, "My clothes got a little wet from the rain, do you have any paper?"
"We've run out of the ones in the car, but we have some newly bought bags in the back seat," Yu Xin said.
Shen Mengqing turned her head and looked behind her. A box of pink-packaged tissues lay quietly on the seat.
In an instant, it seemed as if a cluster of fireworks rose up around Shen Mengqing, exploding silently and blooming into the shape of cherry blossoms, dazzling and beautiful.
She looked at Yu Xin with burning eyes, her gaze as bright as the first rays of dawn. Yu Xin sensed her gaze and, just then, encountered a red light. He stepped on the brake and turned his head to look.
That turned out to be their first meeting.
Shen Mengqing couldn't quite describe her feelings at that moment. She felt as if the oxygen in her body had been burned up by fireworks. She could even hear her heart pounding in her chest, about to break free of its shackles and jump out of the cage that was her body.
The green light turned on silently, but Yu Xin didn't immediately step on the gas. It wasn't until the car behind honked that he hurriedly looked away from her.
The corners of his mouth curved up briefly, which Shen Mengqing keenly noticed.
Shen Mengqing suddenly leaned closer, her sweet fragrance wafting towards Yu Xin. With a mischievous grin, she joked, "So you like such a girly scent?"
Yu Xin was startled by her sudden action, swallowed hard, and leaned back unconsciously, saying, "That convenience store only had this one left, and I was too lazy to go anywhere else to buy it."
Shen Mengqing, as if his wicked scheme had succeeded, laughed incessantly: "No need to explain, it suits you quite well."
Her laughter was mischievous and wicked, like that of a child who loves to play pranks.
It's late spring, and the temperature is just right. If it rains heavily like tonight, it will feel a bit cold. Pedestrians with umbrellas on the sidewalk outside the window are huddled up, shivering as they walk in the rain. Even the little flowers in the roadside grass are drooping their buds from being hit by the raindrops.
In contrast, the temperature inside the car kept rising, as if the heater had been turned on.
When she arrived at the entrance of the residential area, the rain was still pouring down. Shen Mengqing estimated that it was only a few dozen meters to the eaves. She prepared to use her bag to shield her head and jog over.
Just as she was about to push open the car door, her left arm was grabbed by a force.
"Wait a minute." Yu Xin pulled an umbrella from his side and said to her, "Here you go."
Shen Mengqing thought that when Yu Xin spoke such commanding words with a cold and aloof expression, he really resembled a domineering CEO from a novel.
It inexplicably evokes a desire to conquer.
He released his hand quickly, and Shen Mengqing took the still-warm umbrella, asking, "Then how will you get back?"
Yu Xin raised an eyebrow, looking at him like he was an idiot: "I'll drive straight to the underground parking lot and take the elevator home."
"Oh, thank you."
Shen Mengqing opened the car door and held up an umbrella to create a space where she wouldn't be disturbed by the raindrops.
She bent down to get out of the car, her shapely figure fully revealed as she bent over.
Yu Xin immediately looked away and awkwardly gazed into the distance.
Shen Mengqing turned his head and saw Yu Xin, who was staring straight ahead, and said loudly, "Be careful on your way home, drive slowly."
Then he closed the door and left.
Upon entering the residential area, Shen Mengqing stopped and turned around to look. The streetlights were as bright as day, but the black car had already disappeared.
She never imagined it would be such a coincidence that the person who delivered the paper that day was Yu Xin. Shen Mengqing glanced at the umbrella in her hand and thought to herself, "This person seems cold on the surface, but sometimes he's quite considerate."
However, I forgot to ask him how to return the umbrella.
She came to her senses.
When she got home, Shen Mengqing put the damp umbrella on the balcony to dry, then went to the bathroom to wash up. The raindrops on the umbrella dripped down like beads, leaving deep and shallow marks on the dry ground.
After drying her hair and tidying up the washed clothes, she collapsed onto the bed, exhausted. But her mind was unusually active, replaying the scene of her and Yu Xin in the car on a loop.
She pulled the blanket over her head, trying to drive away these distracting thoughts.
Just then, her cell phone rang in the quiet room, startling her.
The caller ID number wasn't saved, but Shen Mengqing felt the string of numbers looked familiar.
She answered and said, "Hello?"
"Hello, this is Yu Xin."
The man's deep voice reached my ears.
Shen Mengqing turned over, her heart pounding: "Is something the matter?"
It's almost midnight now.
In the stillness of the night, the sound from the phone receiver was exceptionally clear, as if the person was whispering right next to her ear. Shen Mengqing could even faintly hear his soft breathing.
She couldn't help but imagine Yu Xin in his pajamas right now—a dark, soft nightgown, the neckline just hitting his collarbone, his hair perhaps still damp, hanging down in front of his captivating eyes…
“It seems you’ve taken the wrong file bag,” Yu Xin said.
Shen Mengqing quickly pulled herself together and banished the chaotic images from her mind.
She got up, found her bag in the living room, and took out a folder from it. The folder had a seal firmly affixed to its opening, while her other folder, which contained materials, was unsealed.
"You really did take the wrong one."
Shen Mengqing added, "I didn't take the wrong one on purpose."
She felt a little guilty.
Yu Xin fell silent, a soft exhale escaping her lips, likely a low chuckle: "I know. You didn't see what was in the file folder, did you?"
"No, no, it's sealed off," Shen Mengqing said.
Yu Xin breathed a sigh of relief.
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "How about I add you on WeChat and we arrange a time to switch back?"
Shen Mengqing was about to agree, but then swallowed the words back, another idea popping into her head.
"No need, let's just keep in touch by phone." She tried to hide the smile in her voice. "I don't add or delete people who have deleted me."
The person on the other end of the phone was speechless, taken aback by her words.
They hold grudges quite a bit.
"When is a convenient time for you? The sooner the better," Yu Xin said, taking a step back.
Shen Mengqing thought for a moment and said, "Tomorrow night, see you at the convenience store."
"Okay." Yu Xin hung up the phone.
The room fell silent again in an instant. After several minutes, Shen Mengqing gripped his phone tightly and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Something's not right.
How did he know my number?
A note from the author:
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They've started testing each other out at home [shy]
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